Thursday, November 21, 2013

In the Rooster We Trust

I'm awfully sorry those people in Irwindale, California are having to deal pepper and garlic fumes emanating from the Huy Fong sriracha plant. I'm sure breathing constant pepper fumes all day must be somewhat painful. But I'm glad a judge denied that city's bid to shut the plant down last month. Those folks in Irwindale are just gonna have to take one for the team. The people need their sriracha.

I'm a sriracha addict. I put that spicy, garlicky rooster sauce on EVERYTHING! So I was super excited when Stephanie gifted me Randy Clemens' The Veggie-Lovers Sriracha Cookbook: 50 Vegan "Rooster Sauce" Recipes That Pack a Punch for my birthday last month. It's a totally vegan cookbook, and every single recipe uses sriracha (even the desserts!). Brilliant!

I made the first thing I've tried from the book this week — Bánh Xéo!

Bánh Xéo looks like an omelet, but it taste more like a crepe. It's a thin rice flour pancake stuffed with filling and served with bean sprouts and nuoc cham sauce. I first tried this dish at a Vietnamese place here in Memphis and just fell in love. But I'd never attempted to make it on my own.

The crepe batter contains 1/4 cup of sriracha, so it has a tad bit of spice. But it's not overpowering. And it's stuffed with sauteed tofu, mushrooms, and my homegrown mung bean sprouts. The nuoc cham sauce (recipe is in the book) is a sweet and spicy soy-based sauce that I spiked with my homegrown habanero peppers. I like things hot, hot, hot, and this dish did the trick (especially after adding the habaneros).

I look forward to trying more stuff from this book! Two words (one hyphenated) — Maple-Sriracha Doughnuts!!!

Anyway, moving on. On the side, I made a super-simple dish from The Chinese Vegetarian Cookbook, another birthday gift cookbook from my BFF Sheridan and her Drew. This is a really old vintage book from 1972, and it has thick, textured pages. It's not all vegan, but most recipes are. And they're not really written as recipes but rather in narrative form. It's pretty cool.

I made the Cauliflower in Seasoned Sauce.

This is exactly what it sounds like. It's chopped cauliflower cooked down in a sauce made from soy sauce, salt, sugar, cornstarch, and sesame oil. I probably wouldn't even need a recipe for this, but it felt more authentic using cookbook author Gary Lee's vintage recipe.